So, in my case, I'm working on the application and validation of different compliance profiles as part of the SIMP project.

In each of our configuration modules, I wanted to integrate an SSG scan into the final phases of our acceptance testing.

I probably should have said 'development framework' instead of 'demonstration framework'. But, the idea is that we can run regular acceptance tests as part of our CI process by integrating inspec into that mix.

We started down a path similar to inspec but abandoned it because we wanted to use the authoritative SSG materials so that we could show the C&A authorities an apples-to-apples comparison.

Unfortunately, this proved to be simply too complex since we could not extract micro data streams out of the SSG in an automated fashion. For example, we have an auditd module. For this, we would want to apply our settings against NIST 800-53 and then test against the 800-53 SSG profile. We would then want to switch to STIG and test against the STIG profile, etc... However, we *only* want to do it for the auditd portions of the SSG and we just couldn't find an easy way to make this happen that didn't require a LOT of upkeep.

Thanks,

Trevor

On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 11:37 PM, Jason Newton <nevion@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Trevor,

The hope is that any work with SSG, rigor included would be 10x less
cost of any lines of the SSG.  So it is a new cost but relative to
long term maintenance costs, it likely more than wins out - and
hopefully the SSG project would arrive at that point fast - in like a
month or two if someone puts in serious porting effort and starts
getting peer review going.

For running Inspec on production nodes - I went back and forth on my
reply here and my final thoughts are, well this is the double edge
sword of solving all integration and parsing problems by hosting the
DSL in ruby.  If all concerning functionally cannot be hidden (using
ruby-fu) prior to module loading without breaking functionality, then
there's not really much that can be done with this approach
fundamentally - perhaps they could make some validatable Inspec
DSL-based document (that is not ruby) for the InSpec DSL that is
runnable

Was not quite sure what you meant regarding validating demonstration
frameworks and utility although the condition of peer reviewed came
through clearly.

Any devs care to weigh in?

-Jason





On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 8:36 PM, Trevor Vaughan <tvaughan@onyxpoint.com> wrote:
> I've also been looking at Inspec and it shows quite a bit of promise to fix
> a lot of the usability issues of the SSG project.
>
> However, to be an integrated enhancement/replacement, it will need to go
> through the same level of rigor as the SSG checks.
>
> Let's face it, while that rigor can be painful, it is at least validatable
> while Inspec is truly just whatever code you wish to run on a system.
>
> I'd be a bit scared of running Inspec on production nodes since it's
> basically a root-level command and control system with almost nothing in the
> way of checks and balances.
>
> That said, for validating demonstration frameworks, it may be useful if, and
> only if, the community content can become peer reviewed and concrete.
>
> Thoughts about integrating it into the SSG project?
>
> Trevor
>
> On Sun, Mar 12, 2017 at 8:17 PM, <nevion@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I've watched the project for a couple of years now and done some work with
>> it.  I'm grateful many of you took the time to get SSG where it's at.
>> Recently I came across chef.io's Inspec and I thought hey, this seems to
>> solve alot of the engineering challenges the SSG project seems to have,
>> especially with multi-distro support.
>> Github: https://github.com/chef/inspec
>> Product: https://www.chef.io/inspec/
>>
>> Here are some of the benefits my eyes see:
>>
>> * Content is centralized (less mutli-file editing for the same tests aka
>> less XMHell :-)
>> * Content is encouraged to be less distribution specific but allowed to be
>> as specific as it needs, and this is encouraged inside a module, meaning
>> less versions are floating around in the codebase
>> * Declarative/Programmatic as opposed to Declaritive/document oriented -
>> I'd say with the later case has led to somewhat awkward and hard write
>> tests, in some cases
>> * Can test active configuration as well as configuration file state
>> * Looks significantly less verbose - as in saving 10x lines of sourcecode
>> (not counting XML output) and developer productivity would be much higher
>> * and as a possible benefit, I wouldn't be surprised if tests ran much
>> faster - though I have done no extensive tests to show this.
>>
>> Most importantly I believe inspec could pave the way to all distros
>> working off of a common and smaller codebase than the existing SSG
>> implementation and be far less maintenance burden and as such I wanted to
>> raise awareness and get a topic going on the ML.
>>
>> Inspec doesn't seem compatible out right with openscap (or maybe it is -
>> they have bidirectional oval/xccdf consumers/emitters), but it IS aiming to
>> replace OVAL/XCCDF as something more sane and just plain old better for the
>> tasks.  They also have tools for running it without scap tools involved of
>> course so it doesn't have to lean on openscap et al, but for some people
>> being seperate from SCAP tools is going to be a con and not a pro.
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>
>
>
>
> --
> Trevor Vaughan
> Vice President, Onyx Point, Inc
> (410) 541-6699 x788
>
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Trevor Vaughan
Vice President, Onyx Point, Inc
(410) 541-6699 x788

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